Wildcats get shutout by Knights in NOSSA Finals (Updated)

Photo by Kate Adams

The Widdifield Wildcats football season came to an end on Saturday afternoon, as they dropped a 47-0 decision to the St. Mary's Knights out of Sault Ste. Marie, in the NOSSA championship game.

Craig Rushon led the way for the Knights with three touchdowns. The win also marked the fourth straight NOSSA title for St. Mary's.

“We were able to execute our game plan on both sides of the field,” Knights head coach Marty Smith said following the victory.

“Our defense was outstanding and created turnovers early. We turned it over early ourselves while driving on offense but we were able to recover from that. We just played hard and it was a nice victory.”

After pinning the Wildcats offense to their own five yard line on the opening kickoff, the Knights were able to get good field position for their opening offensive drive. However, following a twenty yard hookup from Jacob Yukich to Michael Doan, the drive would come to a halt thanks to an interception by Ben Johnson on the five yard line.

Following another stalled drive and a no yards penalty that gave St. Mary’s good field position once again, Rushon would run up the middle for a ten yard touchdown to give the Knights a 7-0 lead.

The Wildcats were starting to make some noise on their next drive, only to have Andrew Pessah fumble the ball at midfield, which was recovered by the Knights Justin Travaglini who brought the ball back to the 20 yard line. From there, Rushon would punch it in from a yard out for his second touchdown of the day. The point-after attempt failed to leave the score at 13-0.

Things would go from bad to worse for Widdifield on the ensuing kickoff, as Jordan Prudhomme fumbled the ball right into the arms of St. Mary’s Michael Paluzzi, giving the Knights the ball at the 38 yard line to start the second quarter. Rushon would strike for the third time on the afternoon with a fifteen yard run, to extend the lead to 20-0.

“When you get into a championship game you have to hang onto the football and against a good team like that you can’t give them a short field to work with and that cost us,” Wildcats head coach Sean Mullan explained.

“We knew coming in that we had to minimize our mistakes and play as close to a perfect came as possible, but it didn’t happen today.”

The onslaught from St. Mary’s would continue on both sides of the ball in the second quarter as linebacker Jordan Kimewon returned a fumble for a touchdown, while Yukich would pound his way into the endzone from a yard out to put the score at 34-0 at half time.

Following a scoreless third quarter, the Knights would round out the scoring in the fourth with touchdown runs from Brett Tombari and Don McGrath, to make the final score 47-0.

For Smith, this year’s championship team has special meaning, especially when compared to the teams that have won the last three NOSSA titles.

“This team doesn’t have the big explosive type players that we’ve had in the past,” Smith explained.

“But they worked hard together and have a great unity and I’m really proud of them, and what we’ve accomplished.”

Despite the loss on Saturday, Mullan felt his team had nothing to be ashamed, especially with their performance locally.

“We went undefeated locally, and made our way to the NOSSA finals,” Mullan said.

“To go 9-0 for the season was something that hasn’t been done in the school’s history, so that’s something to be proud of.”